Waldorf Astoria hotel closing for transformative makeover

When the building reopens, it will still have a hotel, but hundreds of its 1,400 guest rooms will have been converted into privately owned condominiums, according to a spokesman for the Anbang Insurance Group, the Chinese company that bought the storied hotel for nearly $2 billion in 2015. The Waldorf Astoria's history dates to 1893, but its original home was torn down to make way for the Empire State Building. The "new" Waldorf Astoria's more than 40 stories opened on Park Avenue in 1931, built at a cost topping $40 million ($639 million in today's dollars) making it one of the world's largest and most expensive hotels at the time. The hotel also lent its name to the Waldorf salad, a mix of dressed apples, celery, grapes and walnuts that's become an American standard. Plans for the renovation are still not finalized, but some in the hotel industry said the new Waldorf will mirror the concept of New York's Plaza hotel, which was renovated a decade ago into a mix of private apartments and a smaller hotel.